Born in the Bronx, NY, Mike moved to New Jersey as a kid in the 70's. Mike started at Clifton High School. His father wanted him to follow in his foot steps by encouraging him to play soccer for Clifton High. Mike quickly realized that team sports were more political than an individual talent, meaning that you could be a better player than others on the team, but still be warming the bench. You could have your best personal game that day and still lose as a team. Mike vividly remembers scoring a picture perfect Pele goal and still losing as a team, then on top of that getting benched. This rubbed Mike the wrong way. Mike realized that "If I win, it's because I win, if I lose I have nobody else to blame but myself, not the team, not the coach, not even the crossing guard". One day, while a sophomore, Mike went to visit a buddy at wrestling practice late in the season. Mike quickly realized this was "it" for him, 1 on 1, mano a mano, and he jumped right into it, then and there. Even though Mike started his wrestling career late, win, lose, or draw he loved the game and the sense that he was finally "The Master of his own destiny". While trying to play catch up by going to summer wrestling camp, Mike won a few tournaments and placed in the Passaic County regionals as a senior. After high school, Mike decided to give college a try. After one semester Mike was introduced to a National Sales company that was expanding around the country. Mike became "Rookie Of The Week" his first week. Always striving for excellence, he quickly finished his sales requirements and was promoted to office manager.

In around 2001, I began to read about an online article on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Olympic level Judo players Dave and Dan Camarillo. I had recently begun training at a Thaiboxing orientated Mixed Martial Arts Club and had begun learning "groundwork". I really wanted to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and here were these guys advocating mixing it with Judo. Well there was a lot of "bad press" on Judo within the MMA scene at the time; Judo apparently didn't work without a gi and everyone knew that you just took the back of any Judo player once they had done a dodgy head and arm throw!
 
I eventually began training BJJ with Brazilian Top Team (BTT) and then continued this when I moved to StraightBlastGym (SBG). I also resumed boxing, began wrestling and resumed MMA training. The original notion of BJJ and Judo being combined never completely left me and whilst commuting, there was one evening each week night where I was unable to train at SBG but there was a local judo club. So I began training Judo....